Inflated Clinton Poll Theory: The First Field Test

[skipos]

(Some of you may know that I am working on the Polling Generally Indicates That Hillary Is Not As Strong Of A General Election Candidate As Edwards And Obama Theory. Actually, a quick look at most scientific polling sites supports my theory pretty well. Regardless, this is from Mydd.com and is NOT my theory. Thanks, Skipos)

Inflated Clinton Poll Theory: The First Field Test

by Chris Bowers, Fri May 18, 2007 at 03:50:41 PM EST

Are most live-interviewer, national polls inflating Hillary Clinton's national poll advantage? For two weeks in April, I spent a lot of time trying to answer that question through a series of posts on MyDD that I referred to as the Inflated Clinton Poll Theory. Even though, at the end of the series, I concluded that there was no clear evidence to support the theory, there was no official test of the theory at that time and there were still reasons to think that there might be serious problems with national Democratic nomination preference polls. For one thing, the number of households shifting to wireless only continues to rise, which poses a real danger to traditional, live-interviewer telephone polls. Also, that Rasmussen Reports, which has proven to be an accurate polling firm over the past few years and which employs an automated, IVR polling technique, repeatedly shows different results from more traditional methods, and as such continues to raise eyebrows. Third, all national polls on Democratic primary preferences, no matter who those polls favor, are including an extremely wide net of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents in their samples that is unrepresentative of the generally narrow Democratic primary and caucus electorate. Finally, there remains the possibility that live-interviewer telephone polls might create a sort of social pressure that alters results. Do people tell machines different things about their political preference than they tell live humans?

Taken together, do all of these concerns inflate Clinton's national poll lead? For over a month, I have sought out a polling firm that would test this theory. In their latest poll, Cook / RT strategies conducted just such a test, and the results are quite interesting. In fact, they support the Inflated Clinton Poll Theory. The following passage from a memo produced by Thomas Riehle, which I just received over email:

Lots of experiments will take place in 2007 testing new methodologies to see if they can meet or exceed the standards for accuracy of the tried-and-true live interviewer methodology using alternative polling methodologies. One important test will aim to determine whether the internal breakdowns of alternative methodologies yield similar results and similar conclusions to what we learn from live interviewer polls. RT Strategies, which conducts live interviewer polls for Cook Political Report, cooperated with a leading online polling firm, YouGov America (formerly Polimetrix) to investigate.

YouGov America is the best choice for an online pollster with whom to compare results, because all "online polls" are not the same. YouGov America employs a sophisticated sampling and respondent-matching methodology, in concert with superior panel recruitment, to make it the only online poll that can deliver a true, randomly selected sample without resorting to the crushing expense of recruiting and then providing internet access to communities that are otherwise under-represented online, or by employing the statistical gymnastics of "propensity weighting" to mask that under-representation.

Two recent Cook Political Report/RT Strategies polls were combined to yield a healthy sample size of 790 Democrats and Democratic leaners from live interviewer polls conducted April 27-29 and May 11-13. During that same time span, and using a questionnaire identical to the questionnaire used in the Cook Political Report / RT Strategies polls, YouGov America interviewed a random selection of its online panelists that included 750 Democrats and Democratic leaners. The results follow.

* Hillary Clinton scores less well online than she does in live interviewer polling. Overall, Clinton gets 32% in the combined Cook Political Report/RT Strategies polls, just 24% in the YouGov America online poll. The big differences: Among Baby-boomers and in the West, the online panelists were less likely than respondents to a live interviewer poll to make Clinton their first choice for the nomination. Hispanics online are much less likely than respondents on the phone to support Clinton.

* Obama's scores are very similar online to what he scores in live interviewer polls. Overall, Obama gets 24% with live interviewers, 23% online. Obama tends to score as well or better online among younger voters, much worse among the oldest voters, and not as well online among African-Americans as he does under the live interviewer methodology.

More...
http://mydd.com/story/2007/5/18/153019/987

[papau]

1. the response by the professional pollster with real data killed Chris's idea pretty quickly -but no

one should worry too much about polls almost a year out from the first primary votes.

In any case my take away was online polls are male better off folks - which favors Obama. And that from other posts on the site that Hillary is winning General Election matchups in states needed - and Obama is not - although this could of course be name recognition.

The posts in response on the site include this one:

(from the mydd assertion of a closer race) "Third, all national polls on Democratic primary preferences, no matter who those polls favor, are including an extremely wide net of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents in their samples that is unrepresentative of the generally narrow Democratic primary and caucus electorate."

That right there should tell you something. Clinton is clearly MUCH more popular with rank-and-file Democrats than with Independents. Most Independents are either banned from participating or simply, by and large, don't bother to show in party primaries (historically.) That is a strong argument that Clinton's true numbers in all these national polls are actually underreported in relation to what groups actually end up truly showing up at the voting booth (vs. claiming that this time, surely, absolutely, honestly, they will do so.) Furthermore, the vast majority of primary voters and caucus voters are folks 55 and over. They make up more than half of primary and caucus voters. The poll numbers don't make mention of that all-encompassing voting block, the assumption is made that young voters will be showing up in gigantic numbers. That premise remains to be seen, but we KNOW who shows up faithfully every election cycle. IMO that favors Clinton more than most polls are able to capture.

Lastly, there is a very good chance that Rasmussen's polls are way off, that the "raised eyebrows" are caused by how much of an outlier that poll continues to prove itself to be. Even Rasmussen (perhaps embarrassed) explained that in his last poll, making mention that the race is not really as close as their polls suggest. Here is a direct quote from Rasmussen, which refutes the point (about Rasmussen) made in this diary:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_c ontent/politics/2008_democratic_presiden tial_primary

However, the race may not be as close as those numbers suggest. The Rasmussen Reports sample includes not only Democrats, but also independents who say they are likely to vote in a Democratic Primary. Among Democrats only, Clinton leads by eight percentage points, 39% to 31% (with Edwards at 15%). That's little changed from a week ago when Clinton led by eleven among Democrats in the survey.

Obama does better when independents are included because he currently holds a two-to-one advantage over Clinton among those potential voters. Both the number and the preferences of independent voters is more volatile than the preferences of core Democratic voters. Some states have open primaries allowing independents to participate, others allow Democrats only. If the current trends were to continue throughout the Primary season, Clinton would handily win the states allowing only Democrats to vote while Obama would be competitive in others."

[SaveElmer]

2. Inflated Clinton Poll Theory: Prudence Sets In

I spent most of the last four hours thinking about my post from earlier today, and about the Inflated Clinton Poll Theory in general. Basically, I have concluded that averaging all polls is the best way to go. With so many polls, it just seems unlikely to me that one extreme Clinton-Obama margin or the other is absolutely correct, or that one methodology or the other is absolutely correct. When has there ever been a large, hidden vote out that that most pollsters were missing? Outside of the Iowa caucuses and post-Katrina New Orleans, the answer over the last thirty years has been "basically never." These days, the worst-case scenario is for poll averages to be about six points off the final margin, which isn't that bad and can be accounted for in margin of error and turnout programs. As such, I just don't feel comfortable throwing my lot with one extreme or another, or with treating some polls as more accurate than others. I just don't want to go out on a limb like that right now, considering how I was burned by going with one extreme theory in my 2004 projections (the incumbent rule theory) and vindicated for going with poll averages in 2006 (thus opposing the wave theory).

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/5/18/221814/770#readmore